Tuesday, October 4, 2016

It's Not About You

“It’s not about you.”

Four words that I wish someone would have said to me very
early in my career.

It’s not about you.

Those words have been rolling around in my head for a little
over a year now.I’ve been fixated on
understanding what hospitality means and how to better exemplify it and I’ve
distilled it down to those four words.

I was kind of a cocky little shit for a long time.As you can discover in some of my earliest
blog posts trying to insert some sort of Bourdain-ian swagger into my writing,
but that style doesn’t come naturally to me.What finally jolted me from my very inward focus was a brief exchange I had
on Twitter.A restaurant group announced
a new project, I didn’t know the details at the time and shot out a very smug
response, forgetting that a very prominent chef had taken a position in that
group – it turned out to be his pet project.He saw it and responded sharply, though graciously through a direct
message, and suggested I stop being an ass and be more like the local FOH ace
who I had responded to.I initially took
it as a “kiss the rings” statement and shrugged it off.A day later he apologized to me for the
exchange.Something he did not need to
do, considering how inconsequential I am relative to his status, but showed a
humility and kindness that I was probably not deserving of.That brief exchange caused me to examine my
own behavior, and the attitudes that are tolerated in so many kitchens.

This is not to absolve myself of past actions or stand on a
soap box and talk down to my peers.Showing hospitality is something that I fail at daily in ways large and
small, but being an excruciatingly self-aware person, I rehash my day over and
over in my head reexamining instances where I know I could have done
better.

For the length of my career, “hospitality” has been
something the FOH worries about.We, as
cooks, bitch freely and at-length about anything that annoys us – late tickets,
complicated modifiers, simple modifiers, requests – granted or not, you name
it.I’m as guilty of it as anyone.But it’s a habit I’m trying to break.Because it’s not about me.I’ve worked in 13 kitchens now, in about as
many years, and have had plenty of chefs who practice good hospitality, but it
has never been an explicit conversation in any of those restaurants.So maybe it’s something that one just has to
grow in to, but I think it’s a conversation that we need to start having.

A lot of times, bad attitude and habits are tolerated as
long as the food is of the desired quality.We make it about us – if you don’t like it, fuck you, it’s delicious,
you’re wrong.We live in a strange time
to be in the hospitality industry.We
have become the prime fetish of the First World.Entire industries have risen up, in just the
span of my career, around us to glorify what we do and by extension – us.And it’s awesome.Who wouldn’t like having their work validated
and swooned over by a large swath of society?It’s enormously gratifying to be complimented, to see your food in
someone else’s Instagram feed, to see how many Facebook likes something
gets.But, while it’s something that we
created, it’s not about us.It’s about
the food.It’s about the guest’s
experience with that food.It’s about
the guest’s total experience – food, drink, décor, service staff, pace, music,
everything.We, as cooks and chefs, have
become the focal point for that attention.The media and pop culture has made it about us, but as soon as WE make
it about us, we’re screwed.

Cooking is blue collar work.I think that fact has been lost on a lot of people, which probably
explains why so many young cooks wash out so quickly.Their idea of cooking comes from the Food
Network and celebrity chefs.It’s manual
labor.Long, hot hours for relatively
low pay, working with your hands to create something that is to be
consumed.And that’s the thing that gets
to cooks – we’re prideful creatures.We don’t
do it for the money.There is stress,
fatigue, risk of injury, and potentially long-term physical effects wrapped up
in what we do.We put all this time and
energy into what’s on your plate, you sure as shit better enjoy it.But that’s not a healthy mindset.On top of the usual FOH vs BOH mentality, it
creates a sort of adversarial relationship with the diner.Unexpected modifications to dishes can really
throw a wrench in a busy dinner service, and that can breed resentment.As if it wasn’t hard enough keeping pace,
when you throw in a half dozen minor changes to a half dozen different dishes
all at once it can really strain a staff already working at full tilt.In the midst of all of it I have to remind myself,
and occasionally some cooks, that if it’s doable and it leads to a satisfied
guest it will be done.

We call it “The Industry.”It can feel like an exclusive club sometimes.“Are you in The Industry?”Everybody knows what The Industry is.But when we refer to it as such, we’ve dropped
the defining nouns from the title – Service Industry, Restaurant Industry,
Hospitality Industry.All three of those
words are rooted in seeing to the care of others.They etymology and cultural ritual of all
three words is pretty fascinating and worth your research.

Now that I’m leading a fairly large crew of talented cooks I’ve
become even more intensely aware of my own flaws, and it’s lead me to explore
how I can apply the principles of good hospitality to my co-workers, as well as
the guests.I can be a world-class prick
at times, so I’ve been working on being direct in my communication while being
informative instead of negative.I can
be short with FOH staff, and I realize that me barking at them doesn’t make a
hard night any easier.Being a problem
solver is more gratifying than other people’s jobs more stressful or less
fulfilling.Maintaining an even keel
through a hectic service gives you a greater sense of accomplishment at the end
of the night.Like I said above, I fail
in these areas nightly.Sometimes in
ways that only I notice, and sometimes in ways that are obvious to all.I came to realize that my coffee intake was
exacerbating many of my issues, so I cut back from my daily half-gallon or so,
down to one cup in the morning.Sure
enough, I’m much more calm, focused, and actually have more energy.I have to wonder if any of the struggles I’ve
had throughout my career might have been lessened had I made that change
earlier.

I recently had the good fortune of sitting in on a
hospitality discussion with Jerry Inzirillo, the legendary hotelier and CEO of
the Forbes Travel Guide.I had my doubts
about it beforehand, thinking he was probably some hoidy toidy corporate
bigwig, but I ended up completely enthralled in what he had to say and how he
interacted with those of us in the room.It was like all the pieces of my exploration on this topic started to
become a cohesive philosophy.He
absolutely embodied the warm, gracious, humble spirit that we should all strive
for. I wish I could recount everything that was said, but it was very inspiring to listen to someone who so deeply understood

This is why I can’t stand those Chef-as-martyr blog posts
that go viral every now and then.Sure,
we’ve probably all felt that way from time to time, and they were probably
written after a particularly rough night or stretch of nights and a few
post-shift beverages.It’s always
ostensibly aimed at those who don’t work in restaurants, but really it’s just
preaching to the gripe choir.“You
civilians don’t understand the sacrifices I make.You don’t know how hard this is.I. I. I. Me. Me. Me. Blah blah blah.”Yes.It is a hard job.Yes.We do often have to make sacrifices in other
areas of our lives.But we know this
coming into it…or we should. It's a lifestyle, but it doesn't have to be an unhealthy lifestyle.If you’re
working at a place that doesn’t treat you respectfully, or abuses
you…leave!Especially with the current
labor pool, it’s a buyer’s market.Restaurants are always looking for more and better cooks.Find the one where you can be satisfied and
challenged but not ground down to a nub.It’s not all sunshine and rainbows, gold stars, and pats on the back.If you put your feelings ahead of the quality
of the food you’re producing, you should quit now. Because at the end of the
day…

…it’s not about you.

This is going to be a sort of open-ended reflection on
hospitality as I understand it, continuing the conversation in my head and
hopefully with more of you as it evolves…

2 comments:

I don't have anything constructive to add but this was a really interesting read. Have you considered looking at opinions from other service industries with similar foh/boh splits, like construction/maintenance or IT?